Tuesday, November 27, 2012

A little "then and now" on West 18th Street. Here is 461-463 West 18th Street, photographed by Berenice Abbott in 1938 (via NYPL).

And here is the same address today. The bar and restaurant is still a restaurant, now the back end of La Lunchonette. The junk shop has been replaced with a luxury condo.

The crummy little house is now a townhouse that rents for $6,400 a month. "Harry Potter should live here!" crows the listing--but the "super needy need not apply." It appears, in photos, to be combined with the loft space next door.

It's hard to say that the people are different, but we know they are. In each photo, there is a couple, a man and a woman. Imagine that they live in the little house, then and now.

In 1938, the wife follows her husband to the street. He's going out to work on the docks and he forgot his lunch pail. She will spend the day in the crummy house, with the wooden boards nailed across the first-floor window, and the grimy curtains, and the babies crying, and the filthy floor waiting to be scoured. She thinks about the things she needs: an ice box, decent shoes she doesn't have to stuff with cardboard, a roof that doesn't leak every time it rains. But it could be worse. At least there's a roof.

In 2012, the husband and wife walk out together, heading to the lot where they keep their cars. They both work. They don't bring their lunch. The house sits quiet and empty during the day, its floors gleaming, its upholsteries quietly off-gassing volatile organic chemicals. The man and woman pride themselves on not being "super needy," just like the real-estate listing requested--even though, as the wife takes her husband's arm, she thinks for a nanosecond, "I am a bottomless well of needs." But the awful thought vanishes quickly, the High Line rises reassuringly up ahead, and she settles her mind on something simpler to worry about.

20 comments:

This small building looks fairly airy and well-ventilated, and not a big fire trap. I picture the couple living in one of the apartments upstairs with the homey curtains, not in the boarded-up storefront. Who knows about the state of the roof? I'm not sure the building was ever "crummy" per se. A lot of New York's housing stock cycled through being totally decent housing for working class people, then outdated overcrowded "slum" dwellings, and then gentrified overpriced apartments for the rich. I picture this house at stage 1, but I don't know anything about it. The contrast is stunning, though, I'm right there with you on that.

I enjoy your blog immensely for the glimpse it provides into the changes in this city but I never cease to be amazed at how bizarrely bitter and judgmental you can be. I'm truly sorry you don't get to live in the city in your mind because the reality of the city you live in seems to make you deeply miserable and no-one deserves that kind of misery.

Difference between then and now is that the crummy house was purchased/rented then out of need or necessity, to impress themselves. Now, it's for luxury and inhabited out of want, to impress the neighbors, friends, everyone but themselves; an affirmation, a mirror, and approval from others, before they can like themselves.

When you suggest the women has a fleeting thought that she is a bottomless well of need, it's hard not to read a little judgment in it, don't you think? And "boring" is its own kind of judgment as well - boring to you, in the same way that you are boring to them.

you can read judgment in it if you like, it's open to interpretation, but there is nothing inherently judgmental in that statement. many people, men and women, have that thought. and if you read the piece more closely, you will notice that i did not use the word "boring."

You have this made-up person reassured by the High Line, which you have very often posited is a symbol and cause of everything wrong with the city, so I'd say the judgment is pretty explicit. Not that there's anything wrong with that, really--I judge people who pay $6,400 for a fashionable address, too.

A very nice photographer lived here with his wife and small child in the early 90's. He used one of the upstairs spaces as his studio. I believe he said he had bought the place in the late 70's - early 80's.

I worked for a gallery on the upper east side at the time and used to bring artworks down to him to get transparencies shot.

It was great funky, cramped space. The floors look shinier, the rooms emptier, and I'm sure all new appliances. But otherwise doesn't look so different...

What a fantastic, charming house- and yes the listing actually states the cringe-worthy "super needy need not apply" As if 6400 a month and super needy could possibly have any connection. Needy how? Like needing the landlord to fix things in the house? What a jerk. And anyone who reads this blog should know that Jeremiah is musing on these images and what they conjure up in his mind. Don't get offended- it's not a personal affront.

Vacant armies of Facebook Tweeters with designer handbags that signify luxury but mean nothing. How can your $5,000 bag be a luxury when every other woman on the street has one too, do you ever stop to think of the slaves in China who made it? The little piece of brass says made in France or Italy but international trade law says if you just sew the little brass label thing on in France then that will do. Vacant lady with your luxury bag and your frigid hedge fund husband, confident like vultures circling a slaughter house's left overs and ever hungry for more offal at the Spotted Pig!

So I was VERY impressed with the story you made-up to accompany these pics Jeremiah. Poet-ical, romantic, descriptive, evocative of NYC at both extremes and in-betweens. It was ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL, and I encourage you to do more posts in this manner.Then I read the "judgemental" comments above......SHEESH! Can't a guy write what he sees anymore? I, and MANY others, trust your intuition, sensibility and ability. Simply put, keep on chooglin' buddy!WE LOVE 'YA!

I'm super late to the table on this discussion, but for some reason, this really bugs me:

"Harry Potter should live here!" crows the listing"

Who wrote this? Is this really the best description they could come up with? Are they shooting for someone whose knowledge and insight is the depth of a soap dish? Instead of providing some practical context to the building and its rich history, we go for the slackjawed pop culture allusion?

in 1938 this house, 461 West 18th St, was occupied by the photographer Arthur Rothstein, famous for documenting the dust bowl. Bernice Abbott took the picture when visiting her friend and colleague Arthur Rothstein. The house and other buildings on the block were owned by Arthur's father Izzy Rothstein who owned the Congo Tire Company, that occupied a few of the buildings on the block.